Gaming - AllPsych

The Psychological Similarities Between Professional Gamers and Baseball Players

Neil Petersen — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 01:34:12 +0000

Some day soon, the Olympic Games may have video games on the schedule. “But video games aren’t a real sport,” you cry. And yet, besides the obvious analogy between video games and traditional sports in terms of competitive skill, a new study from researchers in South Korea suggests striking psychological similarities between pro gamers and…

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Does Having a “Game Face” Improve Cognitive Performance?

Neil Petersen — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 17:00:54 +0000

One of the counterintuitive ideas in psychology that has become popular lately is that our body language isn’t just an expression of our attitudes but can actually change those attitudes. A 2010 paper suggested, for example, that adopting more confident body language might really make one more confident. That idea then entered the mainstream through…

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Are Video Games Linked to Aggression? Researchers Can’t Agree

Neil Petersen — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 23:25:52 +0000

Whether violent video games go hand-in-hand with violence in real life seems like exactly the kind of question we should send over to the psychology researchers. And psychology researchers do have an answer. Actually, they have several different answers that contradict each other. First, I’ll give you the results of the most recent study published…

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Can a Game Fight Mental Health Stigma?

Neil Petersen — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 23:13:33 +0000

For the progress we’ve made in mental health awareness, there’s still plenty of stigma lingering around. Stigma can be overt, such as in believing that people with mental health conditions are dangerous or should be separated from society. It can also be more subtle, such as in being reluctant to interact with people who have…

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Do Children Beat Adults at the Game of Concentration?

Neil Petersen — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 21:47:13 +0000

If there’s a game that’s equally challenging for players of all ages, it would be Concentration. In case you’re not familiar, the game goes like this: lay all the cards in a deck face-down in a grid. Every turn, you get to flip over two cards. If they’re matching cards of the same color (e.g.,…

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What an Amazing Coincidence Tells Us About Schadenfreude

Neil Petersen — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 22:44:08 +0000

In December 2015, researchers asked 59 Argentinian adults to consider this description of a scenario featuring Argentina’s long-time football rival, Brazil. They meant it as a hypothetical exercise: Brazil and Peru are playing a football match. The match is decisive for the both teams’ chances of advancing to the next round. Brazil will make it…

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Are Girls Better at Jigsaw Puzzles?

Neil Petersen — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 22:40:54 +0000

Sex differences are a tricky topic for psychology researchers. It’s unclear to what extent the brains of men and women work differently. On top of that, it’s hard to tell whether any differences that exist have an underlying biological cause, or whether they’re just the result of society encouraging different behaviors in men and women.…

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